Boom!
I hit the asphalt of the schoolyard. My knees bent, muscles screaming as they absorbed the impact of a ten-meter drop. Normal students would have shattered their legs. But I had just dumped 6 points into Endurance.
"Graaaah?" The Iron Butcher stopped crushing the sedan. It turned its massive head toward me. Its eyes, glowing with red rage, looked at me with confusion. It wasn't used to "food" falling from the sky to confront it.
I stood up, dusting off my uniform. "Hello, big guy," I said, spinning the Fang of the (ERROR) in my hand. The translucent blade hummed, distorting the light around it. "Sorry to interrupt your playtime."
The monster roared—a sound that was half-beast, half-metal grinding. [Boss Ability Detected: "Intimidating Roar"] [Check: Willpower vs Fear] [...Failure. Applying Status: FEAR (All stats -20%)]
A wave of supernatural terror washed over me. My hands trembled instinctively. My heart raced. The System was trying to tell my brain that I was prey. But then, the golden text in my soul flickered.
[Passive Skill "Absolute Negation" (weakened) Activated.]
[Failure in the resistance of "FEAR"]
[Using system authority to reduce "FEAR" status from 20% to 0,001%]
The trembling stopped instantly. My heartbeat slowed to a calm, rhythmic thrum. I looked at the monster with dead, bored eyes. "Is that it?" I taunted.
Enraged that its roar didn't make me cower, the Butcher charged. For a creature of that size, it was terrifyingly fast. The ground shook with each step. It raised its iron club, a weapon that weighed at least two tons, and brought it down.
WHOOSH!
The wind pressure alone tore the grass from the ground. But I wasn't there. With 15 Agility, I was faster than any Level 1 human had the right to be. I slid under the swing, the massive club missing me by inches.
I was now inside his guard. "Defense 25, huh?" I whispered, looking at the thick, crude iron plates welded to his flesh. "Let's see the math."
I thrusted the Fang of the (ERROR) upward. There was no resistance. No sound of metal clashing against metal. It was like stabbing water. The glitchy blade phased right through the iron armor, through the tough grey skin, and sank deep into the monster's thigh.
[System Error: Damage Calculation Bypass] [Defense: 25 -> Treated as 0] [Damage: 21 (True Damage) + Critical Hit (Vital Point: Femoral Artery)] [Total Damage: 52!]
"GWOOOOARH!" The Butcher screamed, a sound of genuine shock. It tried to step back, but its leg gave way. A fountain of black blood sprayed from the wound, sizzling on the pavement.
Above, in the broken windows of the school, the students watched in silence. The Angel looked like he was about to crash. "Impossible..." the Angel muttered. "That weapon... it's not piercing the armor. It's... deleting the space between the atoms?"
I didn't stop. The Butcher swung his free hand, trying to swat me like a fly. I rolled backward, feeling the wind of his claws brush my nose. I glanced at the Boss's HP bar floating above its head.
[HP: 448/500] [Status: Bleeding (Moderate)]
"Too slow," I analyzed. "I don't have enough Mana to spam Admin commands. I need to end this physically."
The Butcher realized I was dangerous. Its AI shifted phases. The metal plates on its body began to heat up, glowing red hot. [Boss Phase 2: Overheat] [Speed +30% | Attack +20% | Aura of Fire activated]
"Die, bug!" The monster spoke for the first time, its voice guttural and broken. It charged again, this time swinging the club horizontally. It was too fast. I couldn't dodge completely. I raised the Fang to parry, not the club, but the trajectory. Clang! The impact threw me back five meters. I tumbled on the asphalt, coughing up blood. [-25 HP]
"Damn," I gritted my teeth, standing up. My arms felt numb. Even with the parry, the shockwave was brutal.
The Butcher didn't give me time to breathe. It raised the club for a finisher. I looked at the incoming attack. I looked at the code of the world. I saw it. A small, flickering red line on the monster's chest. A texture error where two armor plates overlapped poorly. A graphical glitch. A weak point only an Admin could see.
[Targeting Weakness: Texture Overlap ID_77]
I didn't run away. I ran toward him. The club came down. I slid on my knees, bending my back backward like a limbo dancer. The iron spikes of the club grazed my nose. I was now directly under his chest.
"Delete," I hissed.
I drove the Fang upward with both hands, shoving the entire length of the blade into the glitchy texture gap, straight into the monster's heart.
The world paused. The monster froze. The HP bar didn't drain. It simply vanished.
[Fatal Error: Core File Corrupted.] [Initiating Deletion.]
The Iron Butcher didn't fall. It began to pixelate. Starting from the chest wound, purple cubes of data began to eat away at its flesh. The monster looked down at its own disappearing body, confusion etched on its face. "Bug...?" it whispered.
Then, it exploded into a shower of blue light and data streams.
BOOM!
A massive shockwave of energy hit me, but it wasn't damage. It was pure XP.
[You have defeated the Hidden Event Boss: Iron Butcher!] [Calculated Contribution: 100% (Solo Kill)] [Impossible Feat Reward: Experience Multiplier x5]
"Ding!" [Level Up!] "Ding!" [Level Up!] "Ding!" [Level Up!]
The notifications chimed like a slot machine hitting the jackpot. My fatigue vanished. My wounds closed as the level-up energy washed over me. I stood amidst the fading particles, looking at the spot where the boss used to be. There was no corpse. But hovering in the air, spinning slowly, was a single item. It wasn't a weapon. It wasn't armor. It was a black, jagged crystal that looked like a hole in reality.
[Item Dropped: Core Fragment of the Iron Butcher] [Type: Raw Data / Admin Material]
I grabbed the crystal. My Admin Interface screamed in delight.
[Material Detected: High-Density Boss Data.] [Consume to upgrade Admin Tool?] [Yes/No]
"Yes," I said without hesitation. The crystal dissolved into my skin.
[Processing...] [Admin Tool v0.2 upgraded to v0.5] [New Authority Unlocked: "Code Injection"] (Description: You can now insert small commands into organic targets. E.g., "Paralyze limb", "Blind eye". Cost depends on target's resistance.)
I clenched my fist. The power was intoxicating. I turned my head slowly toward the school building. The Angel was still floating by the window, jaw dropped. The students were staring at me not as a hero, but as a god of death.
I tapped my foot on the ground, and using my new Agility stats, I leaped. I grabbed the ledge of the second-floor window, pulled myself up, and vaulted back into the classroom in seconds.
The silence was absolute. I walked over to Bruno, who was shivering in the corner. I snatched a bag of chips from his desk, opened it, and ate one. Then I looked at the Angel.
"Tutorial complete," I said, my mouth full. "Now, give me my SSS-Rank Rating reward, or I'll start deleting the walls of this tower too."
The Angel trembled. "Y-you... You are a monster."
"No," I smiled, and my eyes glowed with a purple, digital light. "I'm the Developer. And I think this game needs a patch."